


Shaking Hands and Catching Breaths

by Teddy0414



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, POV Aaron Minyard, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teddy0414/pseuds/Teddy0414
Summary: In which Aaron finally sees that they'll get better if they try, one day at a time. That they're brothers, that thanks aren't needed because no matter how much they hate each other sometimes, they'd both kill a million times over to save their twin.Set right before and after Aaron's trial. Some twinyard "bonding" that no one asked for because this is a sibling dynamic that I'll probably spend too long exploring. My first All for the Game fanfiction, so please be kind :)





	Shaking Hands and Catching Breaths

It’s dark in the room, and Aaron knows no one can tell his hands are shaking in the dim light coming from the TV. He stuffs them into his pockets anyways. It’s tomorrow—the trial—and he thinks he’s going to be sick. Andrew looks casual as ever on the other side of the room. Aaron knows it must be an act, he doesn’t know what he’ll do if it isn’t one.  


Eventually, it gets too much. He doesn’t know what the stupid movie is about anyway, and he doesn’t care. He stalks out of the room and puts a little too much effort into not slamming the door. He goes up the stairs instead of down, because down means having to talk to people.  


He turns around again, to slam the door to the roof, but the door pushes back, and Aaron finds himself staring at his reflection. “What do you want?” Aaron demands. A tiny part of him wonders why Andrew had followed him up here to a height. Another tiny part wonders if it is because Andrew is afraid too.  


Andrew shuts the door gently, and stalks over to the edge of the roof, the last place Aaron expects him to go. “You’re more interesting than the movie.”  


“Right,” says Aaron, sarcastic. “I’m so glad I could offer you some entertainment. How about we just call everyone up here and they can watch me instead of whatever limp soap opera that’s currently got their attention?”  


Aaron doesn't know why this is the reflex, lashing out at Andrew. His brother says nothing, he simply watches and waits. Aaron finally takes his hands out of his pockets, and they’re shaking worse than they were before. He can feel his brother’s stare, but he doesn’t look up. The ground below them is suddenly infinitely more interesting. The silence stretches out between them.  


It seems that out of the two of them, Andrew was born to frustrate, because he wins their little silent-game, and Aaron huffs. “How did you do it?” he asks, still looking down. “How did you not kill him?”  


Andrew snorts. “You already took care of that one for me,” he says, and Aaron instantly curses himself for expecting an answer that might have been serious.  


“Fuck you,” he replies, but his words lack their usual heat. He looks down at his hands, and all he sees is blood. It knocks the breath out of him even more than before, and he finds himself sinking to his knees.  


The only sounds on the roof are his gasps, and the faint buzz of students down below, and he thinks that Andrew’s gone until he feels a firm hand in his hair. “If they’re not holding me back tomorrow, I’ll kill Luther at least.”  


That somehow makes the lump in Aaron's throat ease up a bit. This is a familiar Andrew with his death threats. For a moment, it erases the image of Andrew wrapped up in just a sheet with that manic smile on his face. “You don’t have to be there.”  


He knows the words are meaningless. Andrew had made a promise, and even if he thought Aaron had broken it with Katelyn, he wouldn’t break his end. “And you didn’t have to kill him.”  


But he did. He did. He would do it again and again to every one of them who’d hurt Andrew. He realizes he doesn’t even know how many there are, but he thinks that story might come spilling out in court tomorrow.  


“I did,” he says, holding Andrew’s gaze in an unusual show of solidarity. “Even if tomorrow goes badly…”  


“It won’t go badly. Now go.” It’s a rude dismissal, but nothing more than what Aaron has grown used to over the past few years. He knows pushing will be useless, that he’s only going to get a cold shoulder or worse, so he leaves. Tomorrow couldn’t be over fast enough.  


…  


Aaron wishes Nicky and Neil would disappear. Neil looks shocked, Nicky looks upset, but neither of them say anything because Andrew looks like he might just stab the next person who speaks. Aaron hurts. He hurts and he doesn’t know how much of that is his own and how much is for his brother. And he’s so focused on the hurt that he doesn’t see Cass Spear until she’s in his face screaming and crying and trying to land a blow on him.  


He doesn’t flinch out of reflex—a hard learnt lesson that flinching does no good—but he can’t stop the soft cry that escapes him. Her husband pulls her back in an instant, and he thinks he can hear Andrew yelling and threatening and he thinks Nicky is gently directing him away from the crowds but he cannot make sense of any of it. He’s being shoved against the side of the car before he knows it, and he stares blankly into eyes that mirror his.  


“Did she hurt you?” Andrew demands, and he shakes Aaron a little.  


Aaron shakes his head. He knows by now to be quick with a response like this one. Cass barely landed a touch on his arm before her husband arrived to the rescue, and all in all, Aaron knew he deserved it. Her son might have been horrible, but he still was her son. “I’m fine,” he manages to say, and he thinks he hears Neil snort in the background. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”  


Andrew lets him go and is silent the rest of the ride home. Aaron is about to leave the car when he sees Andrew shake his head. So he stays in his seat silently until they’re driving again, and then asks, “What?”  


“We’re going to get ice cream.” Andrew doesn’t sound any different than usual, and despite everything, Aaron is pleasantly surprised to be singled out. “Get some rest.”  


He drifts off as soon as he closes his eyes, and dreams of blood and bruises and his brother’s manic smile. When Andrew shakes him awake, he nearly throws a punch until he realizes where he is. Neither of them say anything but Andrew moves his hands back to show that he isn’t going to come closer. It helps, somehow.  


They eat in silence too: and Aaron stares at his brother while Andrew stares at his ice cream. His mind goes back to Andrew on the witness stand, telling the judge in no uncertain terms: _“He said next time he’d make sure Aaron was there too. He said—”_ It was one of the few times in the past years Aaron had seen his brother hesitate, so he knew that what Andrew had said next had been purposely shortened to omit the details. Not for the sake of anyone in that court, but for Aaron. _“—he would hurt Aaron. I wouldn’t have let that happen. Not for anything.”_  


“Are you going to ask me what you’re thinking or are you just going to stare at me like that all day?” asks Andrew, finally looking up from his half-finished dessert.  


Aaron rolls his eyes, using the precious seconds to find the words he needs. “What you said today… about Drake and what he said he would do…”  


He waits for a reaction, because as much as Andrew frustrates him, Aaron knows he doesn’t want to be stabbed today. Andrew flicks the spoon towards him, gesturing for him to go on.  


He finds his throat closing up even as he speaks. “I didn’t think you cared that much. Not enough to do that. But I guess I was wrong—and everything about mom, I mean Tilda and the drugs and the promise—you had my back then and you had it today and I guess I just don’t know what to do.”  


“If I wanted you to do something I would have told you,” says Andrew, barely even blinking at Aaron’s broken-up rant. “I made a promise to protect you. It’s good for another four years, and then it’s up for renewal. I don’t need your forgiveness for what I did to Tilda. I’d do it a million times over.”  


“She was our mom,” Aaron protests, anger flaring out of habit as soon as she’s brought up. But Andrew is right, because Aaron would have killed Drake a million times over too.  


Andrew shrugs with so much indifference that Aaron has to resist the urge to throw his ice cream across the table. “She hurt you,” Andrew says simply. “I think even you can still feel the scars she left.”  


Aaron wants to yell that she didn’t leave anything, but he knows what happened today, he knows what happens every time Bee or Abby try to move too fast or get too close when he isn’t ready for it. “Do you want me to thank you?” he asks, and once again bitterness is a reflex.  


“I’d have found better people a long time ago if gratitude was what I wanted,” Andrew scoffs. “No, I don’t want you to do or say anything that you’ll be ready to take back the next time you think I’m suffocating you.”  


It is blunt, it is sharp, it is Andrew. Aaron leans back in his chair and takes the insult without blinking an eye. “Why are we here?” he asks.  


“To let you know that whatever you heard today changes nothing. You’re still mine to protect. You can hate me for what you heard today but you’re still mine.” It was a dangerous declaration of possession, the sort that he knows Andrew usually loves to make, but Aaron senses an unusually vulnerable undercurrent.  


“You didn’t have to drive us all the way here to tell me that,” he replies, and digs into the last of his ice cream as he tries to find the right words once again. He wonders briefly if they came here more for Andrew’s sake than his own. “I don’t like what you did to Tilda, but you said you don’t want my forgiveness. I don’t like what you think about Katelyn, but I don’t like Neil either. What I heard today…considering that I was—still am—an absolute fucking coward about Tilda, I’d say everything you did was pretty damn brave.”  


“You won’t tell anyone.” It is an order, not a question, but Aaron hears the question in it anyways. Andrew has moved on from Aaron's admission with barely a nod, to the next important thing. Aaron wonders how many times he will have to apologize. “You won’t talk about it. Not even with Nicky and Neil.”  


“Believe me when I say I’m not going to be talking about anything with Neil.” Aaron plays off his answer as a joke but it seems to be enough. They hold each other’s gaze over the table for almost a minute without blinking, and for once he sees solidarity instead of contempt in his brother’s eyes. They are in this together and that is a weight off Aaron’s shoulders.  


They don’t speak on the car ride back. When they climb up Fox Tower, Andrew goes up past him towards the roof. Aaron lets him go; he doesn’t think he has it in him to say another word today. Inside, the Foxes all look worried, but when he shakes his head they let him be.  


He sits on the couch, picks up his textbook, and reads till the words blur and he dozes off. But fitful sleeper that he is, he doesn’t miss his brother’s touch when Andrew throws a blanket over him on his way to bed.


End file.
